Tag Archives: Stockton

In the US we see a new plan to fix infrastructure, which sounds nice, but the US does not have that $1.5T, they are relying on state and local government to raise the money. This sounds nice, but when we realise that the city of Detroit, San Bernardino, Stockton and a few more have filed for bankruptcy, we need to wonder what part of the US would get fixed, because the parts that require fixing might not get it done, the bulk of the American local governments have no budget left to get anything fixed. There is also the news in the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/11/sweden-tried-to-drop-assange-extradition-in-2013-cps-emails-show), that ‘Sweden tried to drop Assange extradition in 2013, CPS emails show‘. This is odd, because the quote “The newly-released emails show that the Swedish authorities were eager to give up the case four years before they formally abandoned proceedings in 2017 and that the CPS dissuaded them from doing so” gives even more rise on certain matters. We are then treated to two interesting quotes. The first “The CPS lawyer wrote back to Ny in December 2013, insisting: “I do not consider costs are a relevant factor in this matter.” This was at a time when the Metropolitan police had revealed that its security operation to prevent Assange escaping from the embassy had already cost £3.8m“, as well as “The CPS lawyer also told Ny that year: “It is simply amazing how much work this case is generating. It sometimes seems like an industry. Please do not think this case is being dealt with as just another extradition”“. They are interesting because if we look at the costs of trials there is an extensive need that the CPS lawyer handling that case, might have retired, but letting his pension pay for these costs is not too excessive. You see, when you set £3.8m aside for the security operation on an alleged rapist, whilst you can’t get the CPS talking in a straight line, questions need to be asked, and they need to be asked from the people at the highest levels of the CPS. You see, when you look at that specific case against the CPS (at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cps-review-rape-sexual-assault-cases-trials-collapse-alison-saunders-a8180881.html), where we see “All current rape and serious sexual assault cases are to be urgently reviewed by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) after the collapse of a string of trials due to evidence disclosure failings“, so when we see the collapse of this amount of cases, whilst the CPS blew 4 million on one specific person in regards to a case not pertinent to the UK, there are a number of questions that rise and the media have been all over this for the longest time. So as I see “Police officers dealing with disclosure of evidence could be required to obtain ‘licence to practise’ under plan to address failings“, I realise that the CPS failing is actually a lot larger then we currently see and in all this, and as I see it, in this case, Alison Saunders has ‘inherited’ a mess that is just the tip of the iceberg. The fact that she has held the office since 2013 gives rise to an internal mess that lacks all transparency for the members within the CPS, because if that is not the case and the failings were known in advance than the CPS requires a witch hunt broom to clean it up, right and proper.

You see, this is getting larger and larger. With: “A Metropolitan Police officer involved in two collapsed rape cases has been removed from active investigations amid probes into failures to disclose key evidence” some fail to see that that it is not merely about evidence that was not shown to the defence, there is a concern that the evidence was wrongly collected or not completely collected. This now places the woman in all this in a larger focussed danger because if the police failed to get ALL the evidence, there is the risk that no conviction will ever be achieved. This is partially seen with: “Police had downloaded the contents of complainants’ phones but failed to pass on the information they contained to the prosecution or defence, claiming thousands of messages were irrelevant“, this also implies that the alleged criminals might rely on photo vaults that cannot be hacked and a wrong code could wipe it all. And as for the ‘irrelevant‘ part, how much time was used and how were messages categorised as ‘irrelevant’? The fact that these failings go back at least 7 years show that there is a lack of technical skills, which also means that evidence was never examined properly. If our actions are on our smartphone, the lack to comprehend the usage of that device to the larger extent means that the investigation was incomplete.

That part is shown with the quote “Lawyers say they are frequently told police do not have the time, training or resources to examine thousands of messages and photos on each smartphone – technology which did not exist when forces were given the responsibility of checking for evidence” which was given in a linked article also from the Independent. As we can show that the smartphone has been centre of the personal universe of millions for over 5 years, we can in equal measure state that the correct investigation of evidence that would have been in play has failed for 5+ years. That is far beyond serious, that now implies a systemic failure of the CPS, which is unfortunate for Alison Saunders as this has been on her plot of land for pretty much since she got the top position. Even as we can agree that “the authority said officers failing to comply with requirements were “often ignorant” of their disclosure responsibilities” clearly implies a failing since before she had the position; it equally shows that the CPS has a much larger systemic failure that also involves the Police force. In all this the implied links to the USA in regards to Julian Assange and the clear fact that a government that cannot overhaul its own roads has no business playing politics with the options of the CPS and using members from inside the CPS shows a third failing as well. That part is also shown in the earlier quote “Please do not think this case is being dealt with as just another extradition“, because that is the money quote. You see, that is exactly what it had to be, merely another extradition! The fact that it was not implies that this was some US based nepotism, which coming from the CPS should actually be regarded as utterly revolting, because the CPS has no business playing politics with issues that were not UK based (beyond the optional extradition). In addition, law experts in the UK and other countries have already given a clear view in the days following the entire WikiLeaks part. Form the clear view of Assange being Australian, he had basically not committed the crimes as the US played them to be; you see he is not a US citizen. Now I am no friend of Assange, I utterly oppose what he did, but in the end, the hypocrisy that the US showed by trying to hang an Australian, whilst they refuse to hang the people who were behind the 2008 crash and let them walk away with their billions of bonuses is just slightly too sanctimonious for my blood.

The fact that the CPS was willing to waste millions on nepotism and playing politics with the powers of the CPS is merely the icing of the systemic failing cake (yes it is minty flavoured). It will be essential to make larger changes and making them immediately is a lot more essential. Even as the changes are being made and we see that they are 5 years late. My only concern is that acting fast is equally dangerous. With technology it is not merely on the evidence collected, but on how it is stored. The larger danger is that digital stored evidence remains to be optionally under attack until presented in court and with court dates being pushed forward by up to a year that danger will only intensify with every iteration of technology the courts gets to be confronted with.

And in the end?

Considering the mess we see with ‘not to be shown to the defence‘ whilst that was the turning point in the movie ‘In the name of the father‘ a movie from 1993, based on the Guilford Four, the bombing in 1974 implies that the CPS 33 year later still haven’t learned anything (or more accurately, way too little). I would think that those events would have signaled a strong chance of how the matters were handled. It is clear that this is not the case and more dangerously that other players (the US) can use it to play politics, that part is even more damning as I personally see it.

Is that it?

Well, no, there is a defensive side in all this too. When we see: “Defence lawyers say they are routinely having to “fight to get” evidence police should have already reviewed, then putting in hours of unpaid work to examine it themselves at a late stage of criminal proceedings” implies strongly the lack of resources and technology. There will be a larger need to get smart about certain matters and that can be achieved to some degree, but in the end it will be about ample resources, that part has not been in question. The large bonus based pound amount will be about how to bring this about. That is the part that the R v Allan case brings forward. The Joint review (joint-review-disclosure-Allan) gives us two gems the first is seen in Item 27 of the chronology: “The officer in the case (OIC) decided to submit C’s phone for examination by the MPS digital forensic laboratory in order to recover deleted messages. The phone contained over 57,000 lines of message data. He conducted a search of the phone download in an effort to identify relevant material. He did not record the method he used to conduct this search“. This now shows exactly the technological failure and well as the failure of the resources. In this particular case the resources seems to be free of blame, yet the technology and the options used are not. The question is how the data became available. the second part is see in point 9 of the findings as we see “Prosecution Counsel and the prosecutor relied on the OIC mistakenly stating that the only messages retrieved were some limited Snapchat messages and that the other data in the phone download was personal data not impacting on the case. The prosecutor should have probed and challenged the OIC and should not have relied upon Prosecuting Counsel making the enquiries. Disclosure should have been considered earlier by the prosecution team“, here I would think that the clear mention of ‘57,000 lines of message data‘ might ring a bell in the brain of the prosecutor to look at the methodology and approach to that evidence. In addition, the mention of ‘limited Snapchat messages‘ also implies that here might be a larger social media interaction between certain parties. Was this ever looked at? The fact that only item 31 of the chronology part makes any mention of social media, gives rise to the joint report being incomplete. You see, people who are on Snapchat tend to be on Facebook as well, so was there no interaction between these parties at all? If that is the case we see the statement that we see in item 26 of the chronology “In January 2016, C alleged that she had been sexually assaulted and raped by D on a number of occasions. As part of the police investigation, C’s phone was handed to the police. In police interview, D said that their sexual relationship was consensual and that the allegations were untrue“, that statement would seem more accurate if there had been little of no Social Media interactions and become lessened with any positive social media interaction that the two parties had. The idea of 57,000 messages and no Facebook gives this my personal assessed reliability of almost 0%. So in this part even the joint review falls short. We can understand that the CPS/Police failed there, yet the fact that social media is merely one paragraph in the review also shows that the review might still be incomplete at present, which is an assumption from my side, so I attached the review of R v Allan so you can make up your mind in all this.